Website for a business moving to a new town

When a business moves to a new town, the website has to change in three places: the details (address, phone, hours, area), the pages that talk about where you work, and the listings outside your site that Google and customers rely on, starting with your Google Business Profile. Done in the right order, old customers find you at the new place, new customers find you at all, and the place your business has earned online moves with you rather than starting from scratch. Here is what to change and when.

First, decide what kind of move it is

The work depends on how far you are going and who your customers are.

Across town, same customers. Mostly a change of address and directions. Keep everything else.
To a nearby town, some customers follow. New address and area, plus a plan for customers in the old area: will you still serve them?
To a new region or state. Effectively a new local business in a new market, carrying your name, reviews and experience with you. Licensing, area pages and listings all need attention.
A service business whose base moves but whose service area stays roughly the same. Often just a new base address and a few changed towns on the list.

Write down which one you are. It decides how much of the site needs new words.

The order to do things in

Doing the steps in the wrong order causes the most trouble: customers turning up at an empty shop, or Google showing two addresses. A sensible order:

A few weeks before: announce the move on your website with the date and new address.
On moving day: change the address, phone, hours and map on the website.
The same day: change your Google Business Profile address.
The first week: update other listings, directories and social profiles.
The first month: rewrite area pages and add pages for the new area.
After a few months: remove the moving notice and review what is working.

Before you move: tell people on the site

Put a short notice on the home page, near the top:

"We're moving. From March 3 we'll be at 210 Grand Avenue, Easton. Same phone number, same team."

Add a line about what changes for customers: new parking, different hours, whether you will still serve their area. Keep it up for a couple of months after the move, then shorten it to a line on the contact page.

On moving day: change every mention of the old address

Your address and phone number probably appear in more places on your site than you think. Check:

The header or top bar, and the footer on every page
The contact page and its map
The about page ("located in the heart of Old Town since 2004")
Directions and parking notes
Service pages that mention the town
Photos of the old shop front or sign
Your page titles and descriptions, the short text Google shows under your link
Any PDF price lists, menus or forms with the old address printed on them

If your phone number changes, check every tappable call button too, and consider keeping the old number forwarding for a year.

Your Google Business Profile and other listings

Your Google Business Profile is often what people see before your website. Update it as soon as you have moved:

For a storefront, edit the address in the profile. Google may ask you to verify the new location again; follow its steps. Google's Business Profile help explains the current process.
For a service-area business, update the service area, and the hidden base address if you have one.
Update hours and phone if they changed.
Add photos of the new place inside and out.

Then update your other listings with exactly the same name, address and phone wording as the site: Apple Maps, Bing Places, Yelp, Facebook, your trade associations, your chamber of commerce, and any directories you appear in. Consistent details everywhere help Google trust that the new address is right. Name, address and phone: why they must match everywhere has a list of where to look.

The old area: keep, change or let go

If you will still serve customers in your old town, say so clearly: "We still serve Westbrook, just 15 minutes from our new shop." Keep any page about that area, and update it with the new travel details.

If you will no longer serve the old area, do not delete those pages abruptly. People and Google may still follow links to them. Instead:

Change the page to explain you have moved and where, with a link to the new contact page; or
Send the old address on to the closest relevant new page, so anyone following an old link lands somewhere useful instead of an error.

Old page addresses that bring in visitors are worth protecting even when the content changes. Old page addresses and why forwarding them matters explains how this works.

Pages for the new area

A new town means new customers who do not know you yet. Give them a reason to trust you:

Rewrite the home page headline to name the new town: "Family bakery, now on Grand Avenue in Easton."
Update the towns you serve if you go to customers. Name the real places around your new base.
Add local details a newcomer business can honestly offer: parking, landmarks, local suppliers you use, local events you join.
Keep your history: "Twenty years in Westbrook, now in Easton." Your experience and reviews came with you.
Do not pretend you have always been there. Customers in a new town respect honesty about a move.

If you are in a new state, check what licenses or registrations change and update numbers on the site. Your accountant or attorney can tell you what applies.

Your domain name

If your domain includes your old town's name, you do not have to change it straight away. Changing a domain is a bigger job than changing an address and has its own risks for email and for the place your site has earned in search. Many businesses keep the old domain for a while and decide later. Changing your domain name: when it's worth it weighs it up.

What to do this week

Decide which kind of move you are making and whether you will still serve the old area.
Add a moving notice to your home page with the date and new address.
List every page on your site that mentions your address, town or phone.
Make a list of every listing outside your site that shows your address.
Plan the Google Business Profile change for moving day.

If your current site is full of old-town details and would be quicker to replace than to fix line by line, you can see your site rebuilt first for the new location, with your old page addresses kept working, and check it before the move.